These ugly windmills are killing the motherf*€king whales 🐳 😂😅🤣
— 🍁🇨🇦Team Canada Forever🇨🇦🍁 (@teamcanadaforever.bsky.social) July 31, 2025 at 4:07 PM
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Canada should cut off electricity to USA for 35 minutes per day, everyday, in retaliation for the 35% tariffs, and at a different time every day to mirror Trump’s erratic decision making
— No Guns In Canada 🇨🇦 🇺🇦🟧 (@NoGunsInCanada) August 1, 2025
...For we lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the
Road we're traveling on
I wonder what's gone wrong
I can't help it, I wonder what's gone wrong...
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This is Canadian diplomatic speak for "Trump can go puck himself"
— White Rose Resistance (@whiteroseresistance.org) July 31, 2025 at 11:06 PM
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Former PM Trudeau enjoying Switzerland with his son Xavier. So glad to see him happy and enjoying his children after everything he did for #Canada and all the unwarranted abuse he and his family endured ❤️🇨🇦
— Alexandros 🇨🇦 (@alexandros2112.bsky.social) July 28, 2025 at 10:35 AM
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TMZ releases photo of Katy Perry & Justin Trudeau having a drink on terrace.
— Pop Crave (@popcrave.com) July 29, 2025 at 2:25 PM
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Too late!we need to evacuate montreal immediately. we could be moments away from justin trudeau appearing at a katy perry concert, an event that would represent the creation of a pop culture black hole
— QuoProQuid (@quoproquid.bsky.social) July 29, 2025 at 10:11 AM
Justin Trudeau spotted at Katy Perry’s Lifetimes Tour in Montreal, Canada.
— Pop Base (@popbase.tv) July 30, 2025 at 10:11 PM
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Relatives of Canadians detained by ICE in the United States say they're furious and frustrated by the treatment of their loved ones and the battles they're having to fight for even the most basic information.I haven't seem any other numbers since.
Global Affairs Canada said it's aware of roughly 55 Canadians in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, though it said that the numbers can fluctuate.
The stories of Olivera, Callejas, and others reveal how Canadians in ICE detention are slipping through the cracks, caught in a system that offers little legal protection and even less compassion. With pressure mounting from families, lawyers, and advocacy groups, the Canadian government must prioritize transparency and urgent support for citizens held abroad. For now, these families are still waiting. For answers. For help. For someone to care.Yes. For someone to care.
...The Blue Jays’ spectacular second half continued as they picked up their seventh win in eight games since the all-star break, and took over top spot in the major leagues, by taming the Tigers 6-2 at Comerica Park on Friday night. ... [pitcher José Berríos said] "the way we are playing, we deserve to be in that position. We are winning ball games, we are having fun and we are happy and motivated to come to the ballpark every day.”...
When facing Tarik Skubal, the best approach is to pray. If those prayers aren’t answered, it’s time to grind. Story on the #BlueJays’ big win against a true ace… which they’ll need to do plenty of in October: www.mlb.com/bluejays/new...
— Keegan Matheson (@keeganmatheson.bsky.social) July 26, 2025 at 8:28 PM
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Davis Schneider with a candidate for the #BlueJays' catch of the year. Wow.
— Keegan Matheson (@keeganmatheson.bsky.social) July 26, 2025 at 4:22 PM
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The trade deals are going to be announced along with Trumps big beautiful health care bill and the findings of his team down in Kenya investigating Obama’s birth certificate, I don’t know what all you liberals are getting keyed up about.
— Oliver Willis (@owillis.bsky.social) July 22, 2025 at 6:07 AM
The British trade deal wasn't what they said it was, the Vietnamese are still yet to confirm Trump's announcement, and the Japanese say they're not signing a binding agreement. The White House has released the text of ZERO (0) deals, and maybe it's all just social media posts all the way down.
— Justin Wolfers (@justinwolfers.bsky.social) July 25, 2025 at 1:41 PM
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CONSPIRACIES: REPUBLICANS LIKE 'EM BIG AND STUPIDSteve M also gives us another clip from this bananapants interview - "Did you open any fridges and see a baby's head?"
If you want to understand Republican voters, you can read a half-dozen New York Times focus groups ... or you can watch this podcast clip featuring former 60 Minutes correspondent Lara Logan and stuntman turned conspiratorial religious-right documentarian Mike Smith:
I will never get over the fact that this woman was once a respected 60 mins correspondent!
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yasharali.bsky.social) July 24, 2025 at 6:39 AM
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The ambassador made the remarks in answer to a question from a conference moderator about what could be done to get people travelling again as Vancouver and Seattle prepare to host games as part of next year’s FIFA World Cup.Hmmm....
“Canadians staying home, that’s their business, you know. I don’t like it, but if that’s what they want to do, it’s fine. They want to ban American alcohol. That’s fine,” he said
“There are reasons why the president and some of his team referred to Canada as being mean and nasty to deal with, OK, because of some of those steps.” ...
We've been called worse by better.
— Canada's National Observer (@nationalobserver.com) July 22, 2025 at 6:08 PM
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www.cbc.ca/news/politic... "Do they think Canadians are not going to respond when the president says, 'I want to turn you into the 51st state & begger you economically unless you bow to the US?” "Obviously, Canadians are outraged." Outraged is putting it mildly My #BoycottUSA is forever #NastyUSA
— 🇨🇦🇨🇦 Proud Canadian 🇨🇦🇨🇦 (@beppil007.bsky.social) July 21, 2025 at 9:31 PM
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Roundup: Spending vs inflation
Last week, the CD Howe Institute put out a report on the recent bout of inflation, and tried to pin it either on government spending or the Bank of Canada, and in the process ignored a whole lot of things that happened during the pandemic that were material to those price increases. Or the fact that early in the pandemic, we had deflation, and that the Bank of Canada needed to act fast to ensure that it did not continue lest it turn into a spiral that would lead to a depression, because that’s what deflation does.
Naturally, however, the moment Pierre Poilievre saw that they were pinning blame on government spending, he had to jump on that because it’s his entire central thesis for inflation, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. I report on economic data on a regular basis, and that includes the Consumer Price Index (or inflation) data every month, and the Bank of Canada’s Monetary Policy Report every quarter. I can tell you what prices increased and where, because that’s in the data every month. None of the causes had anything to do with government spending.
I also have to take some exception to the notion that government supports like CERB were driving demand. CERB was not extra spending money. It was survival money for low-income people who were out of work because of the pandemic. It staved off a wave of bankruptcies and even more demand on provincial social services or food banks (and the lack of provincial social services is the main driver behind increased food bank use, per their own reports). The “excess demand” was coming from higher-income households who had plenty of money to spend when they couldn’t go out to restaurants or go on vacations. They were not the recipients of government support, and trying to conflate the two is disingenuous, and frankly smacks of a great deal of ideological bias.Government spending did not cause the shortage of semiconductor chips.
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) July 20, 2025
Government spending did not bottleneck shipping canals, or cause the shutdown of global supply chains.
Government spending did not cause avian flu to devastate poultry farms across North America.
FFS.
And here's one for all those Republican politicians complaining about immigrants "taking our jobs":
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\But when a powerful figure like a President starts shit-talking against an individual or a media organization - like Natasha Bertrand, Stephen Colbert, Rosie O'Donnell, Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, Jim Acosta, Associated Press, CNN, NPR, PBS, ABC, CBS -- it really doesn't matter whether or not his insults are successful. The threat alone is chilling. People across the country will hear it, and fear it, and never speak up again.This administration is much, much weaker than they would like you to believe. In many cases they're making themselves weaker through incompetent self-sabotage. Claiming they've successfully brought about a fascist regime because they've committed lawless acts of cruelty is doing their work for them
— Hemry, Local Bartender (@bartenderhemry.bsky.social) July 18, 2025 at 11:11 PM
The Birthday Card That Speaks Volumes: Decoding Trump's Message to Epstein
...The Wall Street Journal's revelation of Donald Trump's 2003 birthday message to Jeffrey Epstein isn't merely another embarrassment for a scandal-prone presidency—it's a Rosetta Stone for understanding how predators recognize each other across crowded rooms, how they speak in code, and how they celebrate their shared impunity.
The birthday card itself defies belief, yet its very absurdity rings true. Picture this: typewritten dialogue between "Donald" and "Jeffrey," formatted like a script, surrounded by the hand-drawn outline of a naked woman sketched in heavy marker. Two small arcs denote breasts. Below the waist, where one might expect to find additional anatomical detail, there is instead Trump's signature—a squiggly "Donald" serving as pubic hair.
The dialogue reads like a fever dream of narcissistic recognition:
Voice Over: "There must be more to life than having everything."
Donald: "Yes, there is, but I won't tell you what it is."
Jeffrey: "Nor will I, since I also know what it is."
Donald: "We have certain things in common, Jeffrey."
Jeffrey: "Yes, we do, come to think of it."
Donald: "Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?"
Jeffrey: "As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you."
Trump: "A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret."
This isn't birthday whimsy—it's the language of mutual blackmail dressed up as celebration. Every line drips with subtext, every exchange winks at unspoken knowledge. The format itself—a dialogue between two characters who complete each other's thoughts—suggests a relationship so symbiotic it borders on the vampiric....
What makes the birthday message so damning isn't just its existence but its dialect. The theatrical format, the knowing references to shared secrets, the reduction of women to body parts—this is how predators communicate when they believe themselves beyond consequence. It's a language that assumes impunity, that celebrates transgression, that bonds through the implied threat of mutual destruction.
Consider the progression of the dialogue: from philosophical musing about "having everything" to the acknowledgment of shared, unspoken knowledge, culminating in the celebration of secrets. This isn't casual correspondence; it's a ritualized exchange of compromising material, a celebration of what both men know about each other and what they know about the world's willingness to look away.
The phrase "enigmas never age" takes on particularly sinister undertones given Epstein's predilection for underage girls. Is this Trump's way of noting that his friend's tastes remain consistent? The ambiguity feels intentional, the kind of plausible deniability that allows monsters to recognize each other while maintaining facades of respectability.
The administration's decision to close the Epstein investigation without releasing additional documents transforms this birthday card from embarrassing artifact to active evidence of cover-up. Every denial, every legal threat, every attempt to change the subject only emphasizes what's being hidden. Trump isn't just protecting his own reputation; he's protecting an entire ecosystem of compromise.
The birthday card exists within a constellation of evidence: the photos of Trump and Epstein laughing at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's 2002 quote about Epstein liking women "on the younger side," the flight logs, the parties, the decades of social overlap. Each piece alone might be explained away. Together, they form a pattern as clear as it is damning.
...What we're witnessing isn't merely another presidential scandal but a collision between two versions of Trump: the populist hero who promised to expose the corrupt elite and the corrupt elite member desperate to keep his secrets buried. The birthday card serves as the perfect metaphor for this contradiction—crude enough to shock, coded enough to deny, real enough to destroy the mythology Trump has built around himself.
The most generous interpretation of this artifact—that it represents nothing more than wealthy men's locker room humor circa 2003—still reveals a man who views women as anatomical drawings, who bonds with other men through shared secrecy, who celebrates what cannot be spoken aloud. The less generous interpretations venture into darkness that American democracy may lack the stomach to fully explore.
In the end, Trump's birthday message to Epstein achieves something remarkable: it makes the unbelievable undeniable. No fiction writer would dare invent something so perfectly symbolic—a powerful man's signature serving as a crude drawing's pubic hair, sent to a pedophile with wishes for "wonderful secrets." Reality, once again, proves more grotesque than imagination.
The card's final line—"may every day be another wonderful secret"—now reads less like a birthday wish and more like a curse. For Trump, every day brings new revelations about old secrets, each one wonderful only in its capacity to inspire wonder at how such men achieved such power and why we ever believed their lies....